Mindful Ink     Life, Living and Productivity

Before I proceed onward to my post on self-education, I thought it best to discuss the technology involved in one of those methods.

Many readers of this blog will, no doubt, be very familiar with RSS feeds and the like. But some probably are not, and this is largely for you (though I learned a lot writing this - so don’t leave!)

What is RSS? Well, essentially, it’s a way to syndicate the news or posts, etc. from a site in such a way that you can consolidate this information in one place instead of going to multiple websites. So, for instance, if I wanted to follow all the other student productivity blogs but didn’t want to go or have to remember to go to their sites every day, I could subscribe to their feeds and just read them all in one place (via a web-based or software RSS reader.)

How is this handy academically? Well, I’d generally argue that this is handy for anyone. Even if all you are following are news feeds, getting them from various locations and having them consolidated in one is very nice. Read the rest of this entry »

OneNote.

Some of you may not even have heard of it. Some may just be familiar with it as I mention it from time to time. Some of you may think it’s something people with tablet computers use. Some of you may not want to use it just because it comes from Microsoft (which I can relate to.)

Well, I’ll tell you right now - if you’re a Windows user you’re missing out on a lot not using it. Yes, it has some nice tablet features but most of those are also nice standard features. Even when I had a tablet I never used those features, as the program is so robust on its own.

Now, it is, of course, a commercial application. And no, there’s nothing even close to it in the OpenSource/Freeware area. Or even, really, in the shareware zone. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t know of anything even close to this. On Macs, there is Curio (which is close, but still not nearly as robust). People often do like to suggest programs like EverNote (which is a nice program) but that’s largely because people think it’s something where you just “write notes.” And it’s more than that, really.

OneNote is like a swiss-army knife program, doing many random, strange things, and doing them all very well. Word processing? Check. Tables? Check. Embed files? Check. Scan text in images? Check. Search audio for words? Check. Drawing? Check. Calculator? Check. Amazing search abilities? Check. Outlook integration? Check. Tagging and organizing random bits of information? Check. Quickly add all sorts of new information even without it open? Check. Print to function? Check. Sync with mobile devices? Check. Send to Word? Check. Incorporate Powerpoint or Excel data? Check. Templates? Check. Recording audio and video? Check. Wiki/hyper-text support? Check. “Ink” support (you can “draw” anywhere there, highlight text, etc. This works if you have a tablet or not, it just uses the mouse if you don’t)? Check.

See what I’m getting at? And all these functions are rather intuitive and easy to use - the learning curve is there, but it’s not terribly strong and the basic functions “just work” very well. And one of the nicer features is that it actually comes with a notebook that takes you through how to do all of this. Unfortunately, due to me being stubborn about my post yesterday, I can’t go into agonizing detail here but you get the point - for a student this program is astonishingly useful.

For a class, for instance, I’d setup a notebook and have an intro page with my syllabus, important documents, contact information for the professor, and link to my calendar in Outlook. Then I’d setup a new page for each section we’d cover, typing in my notes, creating hyperlinks to other useful notes that were pertinent, to Wikipedia links or anything else. I’d also often record the lecture, and access if from that same page. Can you see how this would be handy?

And honestly, I used it for everything, not just school notes. Any project I was working on, blog ideas and articles I’d find, any trip or event I was planning.

Fortunately, you can try this out and see what you think. If you’re a Windows using student, or just about anything else for that matter, I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

OneNote Trial (Part of Office)

Get it as part of Office Ultimate for Students for $59.95
OneNote Home and Student (56.99)
OneNote Standard ($79.99)

You may have noticed things being a little sparse around here Tuesday.  I try for at least one meaty post a day, and Tuesday just didn’t happen.

Well, there’s a reason.  I managed to temporarily kill (perhaps stun is a better word) my computer.  I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say, I tried to install a certain beta piece of software and it went poorly.

Luckily, since I knew I was doing something risky I backed a few things up ahead of time, but generally speaking, I didn’t need to do that much.  Part of this was because of the steps I use to create a consistent workspace also work to backup my data.  But not everyone needs a consistent workspace as they may only have one computer, and besides - there is some data that simply doesn’t lend itself well to being synced all that easily.

There’s a few obvious things we should consider first.  First, it is of some importance that you the files you need backed up seperate from those that don’t.  What I mean by this is you don’t need to back up your copy of Firefox, but you may want your last term paper.  I generally follow Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani’s advice, with a few modifications to suit me.  I suggest you follow suite.  Mac users think of “My Documents” as your home directory for these purposes.

The most obvious thing to do, and perhaps best, is simply to write these directories (once organized) to a DVD at regular intervals.  However, I know I find this takes way to much time and I have too many random DVD and CD’s lying around as is.

Secondly, you could also make use of an external drive of some variety - thumbdrives are great for this, though I prefer one giant external drive to accommodate everything (music, media, etc) as most thumbdrives do not have that much storage space.   In this situation, I’m simply making sure I always have at least two copies of everything.  If my computer hard drive dies, I’m covered, and if the external goes down, I’m also in the clear.  The trick here is you generally want to keep things syncing, and not copying things over and over again.  Also, one tends to forget regular backups and an automated system works best here.

Thirdly, there is offsite backup.  Personally, I think this is a must for certain sorts of files.  Keeping your music collection in such a way is a bit unwieldy, but your documents and important files and pictures can certainly be maintained that way.  The easiest way to do this is to setup a WebDAV drive and whatever software you’re using to sync your external drive with, you use with this as well.  A WebDAV drive is essentially storage space somewhere else that on your computer works just like another drive.  If you’re a .Mac user, it’s pretty much just like your iDisk (and if you’re a mac user, you really don’t need a WebDav drive if you have iDisk.)  If you don’t have  WebDAV drive or access to it, I’d suggest DreamHost.

Now, Dreamhost gets a lot of (well deserved) flack but generally for the limited purpose of a large, almost always up, WebDAV drive, I find it works well enough.  For the storage space and price, it’s pretty damn good (and if you use SCHOLASTICIUS as you’re promo code you’ll save about 20 bucks off the monthly price and get a free domain name).  Honestly, the only problem I ever had was getting my account setup as they took quite a long time to get it up and running compared to other services I’ve used.  And I know it sounds arcane, but setting up a WebDAV drive on both Mac and Windows machines is incredibly easy.

 Setting up a WebDAV drive (Windows)

 Setting up a WebDAV drive (Mac)

These issues are rather in depth here, and I believe, somewhat outside my purvue.  Rather, I’d prefer to point you towards some excellent articles about it.

Automatic Backups (Windows) - Lifehacker

Automatic Backups (Mac) - Lifehacker

Long story short, backup.  Personally, I prefer a mix of online and external backup.  You can never be too safe, but you can always be sorry.

Microsoft wants students to “steal” Office (for $60) - Download Squad

The long and short of it? Microsoft is offering Office Ultimate (with everything - OneNote, Outlook, etc.) for $60. Right now, details seem sparse… there’s just a website to sign up at. But I’ll tell you what, I’ve a copy of Office Pro 2007, and I’m not even using it. But I’m ordering a copy of this immediately. Office licenses are just damn handy to have around, I’ve found. And occasionally I still must boot into Windows to do something.

It is limited to students, it seems. So sorry everyone else.

And yes, there are free versions of the basics here - OpenOffice, NeoOffice, etc.

But a) I don’t like them nearly as much as Word 2007, and b) they don’t include OneNote or Outlook.